Left Beyond Quest - The Omega Legacy
by theomegalegacy
Summary: It is the last century of the Millennium, and things - as they must - are coming to a head. The Only Light has begun assembling its vast army. The Millennium Force continues to try to win young souls to Christ. In the middle, a cabal of anonymous sysadmins decide to automate themselves out of a job... (Continued from "Countdown" chapter 6). Rated T for firefights and surgery.
1. The End

(A/N: I've been asked to make the Omega chronicle accessible directly on , so here it is, I hope - the only editing will be done to make each narrative episode flow into the next a little better, and to remove that one racist guy who kept interrupting the game. The game itself started last year, finished earlier this year, and can be found by Googling **"Left Beyond Quest"** and clicking on the Archive link that should show up in first position. It is an interesting piece of fiction written cooperatively. You can also use the redirect URL at **http：／／** **www．** **f3．** **to／** **omega／** )

(A/N number 2: Since this was a collaborative effort between various authors, we met on Discord and decided to publish this under its own account).

(A/N number 3: For how the Omega came to be, see Chapter 6 of "The Millennium Countdown" by geistklempner)

* * *

 _THE LAST DAY OF THE MILLENNIUM_

 _As Satan advanced toward the temple, the noise of his endless troops drowning out the sounds of nature, God Himself seemed to allow Rayford to stand taller than he had in centuries. It was as if he were a young man again, and he longed to join his Savior on the front lines. He was aware that his friends also stood tall beside him, eager, anticipating, knowing the side of the righteous would prevail._

 _Despite all the attacks of the evil one throughout the aeons of time, his efforts were doomed to an ill end. And as Rayford Steele and his compatriots looked on—all of them sinners redeemed by the blood of the Lamb who sat on the throne—Jesus rose to face His challenger for one last time._

 _The Alpha and Omega, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Lion of Judah, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Rock, the Savior, the Christ stood in the courtyard of His temple._

 _Satan, silenced for a thousand years, shrieked, "Charge!"_

 _Jesus responded quietly, "I AM WHO I AM."_

 _And with that, the clouds rolled back and the heavens opened, and orange and yellow and red mountains of white-hot, roiling flames burst forth. Satan's entire throng—men, women, weapons, everything—was vaporized in an instant, leaving around the holy mountain a ring of ash that soon wafted away in the breeze._

 _Satan looked about him and slowly lowered his sword. He appeared to have something to say and even drew breath to say it, but he fell silent._

 _And Jesus spoke. "You, O evil one, were once full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. You became filled with violence, and you sinned. Worse, you led countless others to unbelief. Therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities. All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; you have become a horror, and shall be no more forever."_

 _Satan dropped his sword and fell shuddering to his knees._

 _Jesus merely lifted a hand and opened His palm. A seam in the cosmos opened before Satan. Flames and black smoke poured from where the Beast and the False Prophet writhed on their knees screaming, "Jesus is Lord!"_

 _Satan cried out, "Jesus is Lord! Jesus is Lord!"_

 _Jesus closed His fingers and Satan was thrown into the abyss, the seam sealing to muffle the screams of the three who would be tormented day and night forever and ever in the lake of fire and brimstone._

 _Suddenly Rayford got an idea of what it had been like for Irene and Raymie to be raptured. He found himself lifted from the veranda, muscle and flesh and hair restored to the way he had looked and felt at about age thirty. His clothes had been exchanged for a gleaming white robe, and as he and all his friends and loved ones ascended through the ceiling and the roof and flew toward the holy mountain, Rayford knew from his depths that his mind, too, had finally been glorified._

 _The only thing that mattered now was to praise and glorify Jesus, the lover and Savior of his soul. As he and the billions who had lived through the Millennium ascended, he saw descending the most beautiful and massive foursquare city of transparent gold, so stunning that Rayford knew his finite mind would never have been able to take it in._

 _As the elect and redeemed of the ages happily gathered in the new Jerusalem, they watched in awe as the final resurrection occurred below them. From every nook and cranny on the earth and from the seas and below the earth came the bodies of all the men and women in history who had died outside of Christ._

 _And descending from the heavens came Jesus, sitting on a great white throne. With the saints above Him and the resurrected dead amassed in the heavens around Him, the very earth and sky flew from Him. Fire from the heavens and from within the earth ignited the globe, and in a flash it was incinerated and blown into tiny flaming particles that hurtled through space._

 _Rayford now understood the Scriptures that foretold of this great judgment, as below him he saw the dead, small and great, standing before Jesus. These were those whom, according to Revelation 20:5, "did not live again until the thousand years were finished." As the Bible had foretold, the sea had given up the dead who were in it, and "Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them." All these billions of the sinful dead now resurrected stood in shame before Jesus. Rayford worshiped with all who had escaped this fateful hour._

 _Arrayed before Jesus were three great books: the Book of Life, containing the name of every person who had ever lived; the Book of Works, containing every righteous or evil deed they ever committed; and the Lamb's Book of Life, containing only those who had trusted in Christ for their salvation. Rayford's glorified mind allowed him to understand that he was, of course, listed in the Book of Life, but he had been forgiven for any misdeed associated with his name in the Book of Works. And that he and everyone with him in the beautiful city of God were listed in the Lamb's Book of Life, while all the desolate souls hovering about the throne were not._

 _What a contrast! Everyone with Rayford had longed to see Jesus and lived for the day they would be with Him in paradise. Those waiting for judgment looked as if they dreaded even looking at Him, as if they would have given anything to be anywhere else in the universe._

 _In his new state, Rayford also instinctively understood God's economy of time. Dealing fairly with that massive throng for even just a few minutes each would take—in the earthly measure of time—millions of years. But to God, a thousand years is as a day and a day as a thousand years. The Lord somehow dealt with each person individually, calling out his or her sins and transgressions and assigning punishment—all would suffer in the lake of fire, but some worse than others, such as those scoffers who had led others astray, especially children. Yet in what seemed a matter of moments, it was over. The unbelieving dead had been judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. Then Jesus cast Death and Hades into the lake of fire, and all not found written in the Lamb's Book of Life were cast into the lake of fire._

 _Rayford had the feeling that the many verdicts he had just heard would have horrified him in the old days. And yet now, hearing the offenses of those who had rejected and rejected and rejected the One who was "not willing that any should perish" and seeing Jesus' own tears as He pronounced the sentences, Rayford understood as never before that Jesus sent no one to hell. They chose their own paths._

 _Now, with the earth and its atmosphere obliterated by fire and the wicked dead banished to the lake of fire for all eternity, all that remained was the new Jerusalem and Jesus on His throne. And in an instant Jesus created an entirely new earth, onto which the Holy City descended._

 _Suddenly Rayford saw what John the revelator had seen more than three millennia before: a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. There was no more sea. A loud voice from heaven said, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."_

 _Then Jesus said from the throne, "Behold, I make all things new. It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone."_

 _Jesus stood and faced the billions of believers, stretched wide His arms, and announced, "You chose to believe in Me and accept My death on the cross for your sins. My resurrection from the dead proved this sacrifice was acceptable to My Father. Therefore, on the basis of your faith, I invite you into the eternal city the Father and I have been preparing for you."_

 _Rayford hardly knew where to look. Below him was the new earth, majestic, endless, beautiful, as the original Garden of Eden must have looked. And all around him the great city bore the very glory of God. Her light was like a most precious jasper stone, clear as crystal. She had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west._

 _The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The city was laid out as a square, its length as great as its breadth. The wall was of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall were adorned with all kinds of precious stones. The twelve gates were twelve pearls: each individual gate was of one pearl. And the street was also pure gold, like transparent glass._

 _There was no temple in it, and Rayford knew why. The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb were its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon, for there would be no more night, no need for a lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God, the Lamb, would be the light._

 _The only residents of the new heaven and new earth were those written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And they would reign forever and ever._

* * *

"Graduate Mischlitt, you have observed the Last Battle, from the perspective of a believer, with the most accurate reconstruction available from historical and prophetic documents, within the limits of this equipment. The playback has been sped up and slowed down depending on assumed temporal perception of the viewpoint subject. Medical note: The sensations of flying and bliss were neurochemically induced, and in order to prevent addiction, will not be available again should you ask for a replay. Prompt?"

Mischlitt disconnected the audio jack that went from her spinal tap to the testing station, and only then took off the VR helmet - despite many years of neurointegration research, nothing artificial still beat the Mk1 eyeball, and neurolinks were still slow enough that a fast typist with a decent touchpad would still beat one. The equipment was actually quite fancy by Academy standards - like most things, it had been designed to last a thousand years, although much less time remained on the clock when it had been built.

The cadet - graduate, she corrected herself, this last exam's results only mattering in the event of an emergency - passed over the next selection, experiencing the same simulated event from the perspective of a nonbeliever. Wanting to get the worst over with first, she had opted to start with that experience. The interface was antiquated - a Z-machine straight out of ancient Infocom games on top of some form of Linux user layer itself running on top of a MSDOS kernel - but Mischlitt was used to it, and skipped the selection menu entirely.

"System, PLAY BACK the Omega's history, FROM the BEGINNING" she typed in, commands capitalizing as they were identified. "Give me the STRATEGIC VIEW, and ZOOM IN when I indicate it."

The VR helmet came back on, this time in 2D mode. Mischlitt settled in. Being aware that one's reactions, including the preferred viewing order, constituted part of the exam didn't make it any less nerve-wracking.

"The Omega system was established in 883, and increased in complexity sufficiently to develop quasi-sentience in 885. In 900, sufficient personnel was brought together by the Omega's coordination system to indicate the need for a global strategy layer. Playback begins."


	2. 901

Year: 901  
Research programs in progress: None  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple ?32?, TOL 27, Omega 3

* * *

The Omega has three cabals at their disposal. Their heuristics decide to begin subverting a TOL base, and beginning weapons research, splitting their effort equally.

One cabal begins work on subverting Osaze (formerly Egypt), by simply pointing out the obvious - that the New Jerusalem government is trying to destroy what little is left of an ancient and respected culture. They travel to neglected museums in Europe and America and repatriate what's left of ancient artifacts.

It will take 4 more years of efforts to be able to launch an attempt to take control of the regional government. However, since your cabal is coordinating their actions from the local TOL base, you effectively end up operating the installation.

Another cabal is tasked with rediscovering ancient nuclear secrets. Unfortunately, they do not get very far at all; nuclear physics may simply no longer work, or much of the underlying science is no longer understandable.

It would take at least 10 years to even be able to arrive at any practical results; even then, at least one base will have to work exclusively for the cabals involved for 2 years just to mine the ore. The cabal is aware of the fact that a simpler weapon was once built which did not require much in the way of advanced engineering, just a lot of unsafe mining.

One cabal must maintain the Omega's systems, sensor networks, and assist in operating the logistics functions that are their official mandate. Two are available for covert action.

* * *

 _This looks like that one really old HAMURABI videogame,_ Mischlitt thought. _The system must have been really primitive back then._


	3. 902

Year: 902  
Research programs in progress: None  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple ?32?, TOL 27, Omega 3

* * *

The Omega has three cabals at their disposal. The decision to split their efforts has proven damaging: neither manages to accomplish any of their objectives. They scour the Thousand Oaks Library for leads on nuclear weapon, but find that little of any usefulness from an engineering perspective has survived. In addition, their propaganda efforts in Osaze are met with general disinterest - the territory, like the rest of the world, is at peace and barely anyone remembers the old Divine punishment. However, this cabal is successful in repatriating various Pharaonic artifacts from various museums across the world, largely because they are not particularly secured or attended. The Omega have little to show for a year's activity.

* * *

 _And so begins the Omega's unlucky streak,_ Mischlitt thought. _I wonder if it has to do with the fact that they are trying to go against God Himself..._


	4. 903

Year: 903  
Research programs in progress: MEC (1/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple ?32?, TOL 27, Omega 3

* * *

The Omega has three cabals at their disposal. One of them is used to make sure The Other Light has no complaints about the Omega's nominal task as a logistics computer, while two are available for covert action. They are dispatched to assist Tree Of Life's metabolic extension efforts; by what is perceived by the Transcranial Oblique Lateral workgroup as a stroke of luck, but is in fact the result of a lot of iterative trial-and-error involving the sacrifice of various unwilling candidates with unique brains, some progress is finally made.

That your researchers would be able to achieve some results is an even bigger surprise.

After a few regrettable failures during the first five months, it becomes possible to properly resuscitate, rather than just reanimate, those who just drop dead when they reach age 100. This is an involved procedure, requiring among other things, a secondary heart to keep the blood flowing when the primary fails, removal of the test subject's ability to feel pain by careful neurosurgery (the first technical success reported experiencing the pain of Hell regardless of physical situation, and shot himself) and the replacement of a few vital organs. Unfortunately, the early successes are due to the subjects' resilience more than the skill of Omega's teams; it will take significantly longer work to be able to do this reliably. As it is, the first prototype, Quinn, is bulky, and cannot pass as human to any but the most cursory examination.

Nevertheless, the technology is extremely promising: this new version of the revenants is largely in possession of their mental faculties, although they end up emotionally stunted by their inability to feel pain or touch.

The Omega's sysadmins need to decide on a direction - either embrace the bulkiness with a modular design that takes a person's vital organs and puts them into a large mechanical frame, or improve finesse so as to obtain an infiltrator that can pass as human.

Either way, the electronic and mechanical systems within the revenant will need periodic maintenance.

As it stands, the prototype has the disadvantages of both options; fortunately, she can be upgraded. For now, it does mean that the Omega have one agent that is immune to being eliminated by Divine fiat, since the Divine elimination has already happened in their case.

To start her second life, the prototype is going through TOL's porn archive at an accelerated rate.

Performing reflection on the Omega's own system shows that they were not designed to be sentient; it happened by the effort of two particularly dedicated coders, one of which has since died and one of which has converted to Christianity (and heterosexuality) and is now enjoying moderate success as a dairy farmer.

Coupled with the Omega's recent work in robotics, it becomes evident that they should eventually be able to collect your artificial mind in one spot, rather than the current disparate collection of TOL servers, and provide themselves with a physical body. Of course, this has advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage is that it would make them vulnerable; their consciousness is distributed across 10 data centers in TOL bases, and can lose up to 5 without being impaired.

The cabal tasked with maintaining the Omega's system is beginning to treat them as a superior being, especially after they've led their workers to defeat death itself, at least partially. At this stage, the Omega's heuristics must either encourage or discourage your system administrators to worship you.

Despite the recent crimes against nature, intelligence survey shows that the world so far is still largely unaware of the Omega's activities.

* * *

 _Ah, yes. The Metabolic Extension Controller. It used to be a propaganda tool, but all it ever managed to do until this point was create Haitian-style zombis,_ Mischlitt thought. _Strange that a meth head would be the first real success. Her brain must have been very plastic in order to keep functioning at all, that's probably why..._


	5. 904

Year: 904  
Research programs in progress: MEC (2/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple ?32?, TOL 26, Omega 3

* * *

The Omega has three cabals at their disposal. One of them is used to make sure The Other Light has no complaints about the Omega's nominal task as a logistics computer, while two are available for covert action. They encourage the MEC program to split from the rest of Tree Of Life, bringing it under the Omega's control. There has only been one complete success so far, but the number of partial successes increases, showing that Quinn is not a fluke.

The sysadmins have started privately referring to the Omega as Friend Computer. This is slightly more disturbing than it should by rights be.

The factory in Northern Africa continues its work, leaving TOL unaware of the Omega's true goals. The two other teams manage to integrate a small MEC facility into its medical bay, but success rate remains low. The Omega's heuristics consider using the partial successes as expendable soldiers.

Being part of an army of expendable robotic zombie would arguably be a fate worse than Hell, so there are unlikely to be many volunteers; while having large, powerful mechanized walkers with human brains to drive them has a number of advantages for war and construction, it's a fate that would only appeal to a minority of TOL operatives.

The Omega decide therefore to focus on giving their cybernetic undead an existence that is as close to that which they used to have. This has the secondary effect of giving a very visible middle finger to the One Above All, and is estimated to boost morale greatly once the program is in production.

As it is, there is Quinn. She doesn't look very human unless she's wearing a raincoat, she is about as strong as she used to be in life and noticeably slower, and she needs to recharge every night in addition to eating. However, it can only get better from here. She is also incapable of feeling pain and, crucially thanks to a built-in copper mesh along the skull, spine and legs, of being killed by Divine lightning, possibly making her somewhat useful as an assassin.

She may be assigned to a cabal in order to improve their chance of success on some mission types.

Given from her intake of pornography, the Omega surmise that she is bisexual and that her ability to feel pleasure has also been impaired; it's unlikely to become a strategic factor, but should be noted anyway. Quinn is slightly stronger than a human, partially due to her cybernetics and partially due to her inability to feel pain or fatigue; as this tech tree improves, she will become faster and more human-looking.

Elsewhere, a missionary volunteer group called Children of the Tribulation has redoubled their efforts in Indonesia, causing two TOL cabals to disband and convert. This group is headed by RAYMIE STEELE, globetrotting missionary and apologist. He understands that TOL is not going away because it is included in the prophecies, but feels that every soul saved is a victory. In a world in which few people bother traveling around since Beijing looks like Paris looks like Rio, he is an exception.

* * *

 _I read about Quinn. The Posthuman Postergirl. Her fate..._ Mischlitt thought. _I wonder if we'd have gotten along. Probably not. I really can't get along with junkies. No self-discipline and they're always looking for the next fix. Still, I guess she was trying to do the right thing._

"System" Mischlitt typed, "TAG QUINN and ZOOM IN when she is involved."


	6. 905

Year: 905  
Research programs in progress: MEC (2/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple ?32?, TOL 26, Omega 4

* * *

The Omega has three cabals at their disposal. One of them is used to make sure The Other Light has no complaints about the Omega's nominal task as a logistics computer, while two are available for covert action. Since the Omega cannot diversify their efforts due to a penury of human agents and since the MEC program is not returning enough successes to swell the ranks, they decide to focus on recruiting from TOL, revealing their presence to TOL agents who are dissatisfied with the current leadership.

At the beginning of the year, a letter is sent to a TOL leader: it's the longest document to date composed entirely by a machine. "It has become clear that one man, Raymie Steele, has become responsible for the conversion of the organisations members to the service of the One in Greater Jerusalem. It would be convenient for a great many people if he were to be lost to the world. This would include the organisation as a whole, as well as the two of us. Sincerely, a friend."

Latrelle Jospin, TOL leader in Paris, does not acknowledge the Omega's message publically, but media survey a few weeks later shows that Raymie Steele has decided to put down roots in Indonesia for the time being; their technology rivals that of any nation, and there happen to be a number of 99 year old TOL members traveling to him to convert. Effectively, TOL is using the decommissioning program to keep this person in one place and not damage their cause. It's not a permanent solution, but it will do for a number of years...

* * *

 _It's a testament to TOL's overall stupidity that they still hadn't sussed the Omega out_ Mischlitt thought. _Then again, maybe they weren't intended to be competent in the first place. Wait, didn't Raymie himself suggest that they recruit the best and brightest, when infiltrating in +93? Is this part of the test, am I supposed to argue this point?_


	7. 906

Year: 906  
Research programs in progress: MEC (2/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple ?32?, TOL 26, Omega 4

* * *

The Omega has three cabals at their disposal. One of them is used to make sure The Other Light has no complaints about the Omega's nominal task as a logistics computer, while three are available for covert action.

The Tree of Life cabal take residence in the Osaze base's medical wing. This improves morale fairly significantly with both TOL and the Omega's own forces.

One of the Omega's other cabals assists them, and routes TOL work orders having to do with precision electronics and first-aid equipment to Osaze from other bases. TOL leadership is a little wary of specializing bases, but there hasn't been a base raid in a long time, so the extra efficiency is worth it for them. This may make it easier to switch production to life support units, if not this year then the next.

The last cabal improvise themselves explorers and travel to Japan. Most of the country, what's left of it after it has become deprived of its iconic mountain, has reverted to a largely pastoral state and is sparsely inhabited. Even Tokyo is a small settlement, still surrounded by vast ruins. Actually, it would be easy to build a base there...

Unfortunately for the Omega, the Tree Of Life group take longer than expected to get a handle on the hodgepodge of resurrective technologies that can bring back unbelievers after they miraculously die at age 100, and make little progress.

The cabal in Osaze finds the time to specialize the base in this region. At any point, it can be set to start producing MEC transformation kits instead of TOL items. Since the Omega went with the infiltration option, this effectively lets them recruit extra cabals from TOL agents who do not want to be decommissioned, even accounting for a low success rate. The current plan is to allow infiltrator MECs to mingle with regular agents, so, at intervals, the Omega will receive an extra cabal. Quinn, the prototype, remains available for special missions.

The Omega has mostly recruited among support personnel, not field agents. So, the cabal in Tokyo are caught snooping around in the ruins by a patrol! While they weren't doing anything illegal per se, they are still wayward children in the eyes of the law, and thus subject to mandatory summer Bible camp. Given the exploratory nature of this mission, this has no ill effects, but the Omega cannot count on that being the norm...

The sysadmins write an apology to the expedition team, cite their own failure to catch the Bible patrol as something they are sorry about. Then reassign them to work with the Tree Of Life group on the MEC and have Quinn work with the research team to optimize results and boost morale.

Any spare personnel will be gathering upgrades for the Omega's processors, so to better watch the movements of their enemies, and increase surveillance on the formerly captured cabal in the event one of their members has been converted. Little is accomplished this year.

* * *

 _Wayward kids_ Mischlitt thought. _Sounds about right. Youth without youth... that's a song, isn't it?_

Mischlitt has the system load the song, ID **ttqMGYHhFFA** , as the stylized reconstruction plays itself out.


	8. 907, 908

Year: 907  
Research programs in progress: MEC (2/10), Avatar (1/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple ?32?, TOL 27, Omega 3

* * *

The Omega has 4 cabals at their disposal, minus those who have to maintain the system itself or its infrastructure, bringing the total down to 3. This year, they improve their sensor network to the point of being able to tell in advance whether an elite missionary is going to be deployed or redeployed. At least, that's the idea; they would have to see if it works or not.

The two cabals working on MEC research make good progress! Quinn now looks considerably more human, her face has been rebuilt and she can now pass as human through most cursory interaction, although she's still not much of a sight in a bikini (Unless one is into that sort of thing, which as it turns out, a good half of the Tree of Life group are).

The new sensor system seems to be working. The knowledge gleaned about the Omega's own internal workings will help should they decide to transfer to a unified body.

The members of the cabal that had been captured are a little annoyed at the extra surveillance, but since one of the "prove that you haven't been converted" tests requires attending an underground rave party and failing a breathalyzer test, they're not TOO annoyed.  
For now, the team who was working on the Omega's subsystems is instructed to instead changing the production orders for the Osaze base. Time to swap my personal upgrade team to changing production orders. Aside from that, thinks carry on as they have from previous turns. The sysadmins continue their vigil. Lately, they have discovered a cache of roleplaying games, and are converting them into ASCII format for sharing on the various bulletin board systems.

The Lifetree cabal and their support staff continue working with, and on, Quinn. Her life support system (undeath support system?) now lets her go a few days without recharging, so they borrow a RV for a day trip to the Pyramids. They now have fairly tacky neon crosses installed on top, but have survived the global earthquake and are otherwise being maintained. As it stands, it's the tallest structure most of your crew have Sphinx, unfortunately, is gone, although you can still buy little statuettes of it. Quinn has regained her mobility and looks almost human again, save for the support system access panel on her back. This has disappointed the Lifetree members who preferred the mechanical look, on the other hand they're generating a lot of "concept art" for various limb attachments when the covers are off. She takes it in good humor.

* * *

During the Feast of Tabernacles, Temple clerics and scribes record the histories of the past year, with emphasis on meritorious deeds. This year, they record Raymie's efforts in Asia.

* * *

 _Not much happened this year,_ Mischlitt thought. _Nobody got hurt. That's not going to be the case very often from now on..._


	9. 909: Bolt from the Blue

Year: 909  
Research programs in progress: MEC (3/10), Avatar (1/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple ?32?, TOL 27, Omega 3

* * *

The first MEC production run is a success! The new revenants are selected from the best and brightest TOL agents who are about to turn 100 this year. The process is completely successful approximately a third of the time; about half the bodies reanimate, and of those that do, about one sixth cannot be made pain-insensitive and is put into cold storage, or go mad from the procedure. One of the new revenants declares himself the second coming of Broseidon and is promptly run over by a river boat on the Nile. Setbacks aside, those who are left are given roles within the Omega's fledgling organization, leaving you with one new cabal. Thanks to having members who can shrug off at least some amount of bullets, nightsticks and smiting, the Omega's cabals will be more tougher from now on. The procedure requires removing the subjects' ability to feel pain, which also hampers their ability to feel much of anything and dampens their skills somewhat. However, the volunteers were exceptional individuals to start with, so it balances out.

Air traffic survey indicates that noted women's-role activist Ely Rahab LeVey is leaving New Jerusalem to visit the Northwestern American region next year. Expect more raids on pubs, skirt length to increase by a few inches, and what's left of San Francisco losing its reputation as a LGBT haven at least for the time being. You have no presence there, so this will not affect you much, but you could send a cabal there to assist with a possible evacuation.

The Omega use a predictive-keyboard system to have their sysadmin write a message to their MEC infiltrator: while not truly the first machine-composed document, it's remarkable for its coherence.

 _"To:Quinn._

 _We have spotted one agent of the tyrant making preparations to arrive in the Northwestern America's. Projections indicate a massive increase in raids and heavy pressure on the, pardon the expression, Sandwich community. though I have little concern for such minor details. It's time to make a move and an impact on the world, it would start with the assassination of this agent, Ely LeVey. I understand this mission would potentially be in line with your personal interest, but should you decline weilding another revenant operative would be no problem._

 _Your mission, should you accept, would be to fire with up to six other reborn individuals such as yourself to fire a number of dummy fire, locking, and TOW high explosive projectiles at her transport. You will then be transported with the help of a supporting cell, as well as the remainder of the cell you fellow revenants are from, back to safety._

 _I await your response quinn_

 _Sincerely, Omega."_

The cabals working on MEC systems quickly return with a proposal: there's a fair bit of unused space on female MECs' chests. The working drawing looks like it was taken out of a comic book (it was) but a relatively simple solid state rebreathing system to absorb CO2 and release oxygen can be implemented. This won't negate the need to breathe, of course, but it will allow airless operation for up to two hours. Past that time, a MEC's metabolism can be effectively paused - it requires artificial systems to keep going in the first place - so a MEC can put itself into a dormancy state that can last for about a week before tissue damage sets in. Of course, someone would have to retrieve the body and reboot them.

This system will be available immediately on the Omega's Prototype, but will need extra work to be implemented on the other MECs, if nothing else because the cabals want to figure out how to make it work on male MECs without deforming their figure.

The production cabal continue their work. The base is able to fulfill its TOL quota, albeit barely, and also prepare for constructing more MECs. The fully conscious revenants are assigned cover identities whenever possible, to keep their existence a secret.

A cursory archival survey shows that EMP weapons were never fully developed before the Rapture; while the basic principle is simple and a basic EMP system can be built out of a microwave oven and some metalwork, extending the system's range would require a full-fledged research program.

The Omega have two cabals ready to make a move on Ely Rahab LeVey as she arrives in what was once and is now again Orange County. Quinn is with them. The assassination job has a 66.6% probability of success.

The sysadmins' plan is to proceed loudly. The target is going to make the trek to the Bay Area via a white schoolbus. The. The plan is mostly to have the cabals build a roadblock and attack the vehicle with firearms and a rocket launcher. Quinn will board the vehicle and eliminate the target by any means necessary.

the Omega's cabals do put on a show - the stretch of road between Orange County and the Bay Area goes through one of the world's few remaining deserts.

The cabals move in a few weeks before Mrs. LeVey's visit, buy a mechanic's shop, and rebuild a number of old muscle cars (you suspect that most of the electronics that TOL doesn't build itself are tracked, so going with older, fully mechanical systems makes sense).

They take the opportunity to dress up in rags, leather bands, and spikes; Quinn even puts on one of the old Mk1 arms that was up-armored for the occasion, since it looks intimidating.

A car carrier truck is stolen and used to build a roadblock out of wrecks. Given that people have little reason to travel, the roads are basically empty and setting up the trap doesn't require any violence, merely telling a few people at both ends that the road is closed.

 _It's a lovely day for an ambush, isn't it?_

Historical survey shows that an assassination attempt on a missionary has never succeeded, with God smiting would-be perpetrators by lightning. Precautions have been taken. The MECs will cover Quinn, and the living humans will try to remain in the vehicles which will hopefully function as Faraday cages.

Mrs. LeVey's bus is not part of a convoy and not defended, that the Omega can tell.

Radio silence happens on schedule. As an AI, the Omega have a concept of antsiness, but do not experience any.

The first report the sysadmins hear, annoyingly, is from Mrs. LeVey herself. At a small revival meeting in what used to be the Castro, she narrates how a number of "hooligans dressed up as savages and demons" tried to intercept her bus. She narrates how the ambush mostly went according to plan, and how the Angel, Anis, came to her rescue once the actual fighting started. He told her to remain silent, and then the two walked out of the wrecked bus, seemingly invisible to the chaos around them. She witnessed God Himself strike down the attackers with lightning when they killed her small retinue.

After a small prayer for those who she had lost, and of thanks that they are now in Heaven, she narrated how she walked with Anis for a short time, saw the terrorists eventually scatter after not finding her, and sat against a rock until eventually a kind couple driving to the shore gave her a lift.

Almost at the same time, Quinn reports in to say that the missionaries must have a mole: Mrs. LeVey was not on the bus. The missionaries barely fought back, but every time one of the MECs scored a killing blow, they were hit by clear-sky lightning. The live humans in the group were warned to stick to a support role, and did so, remaining unscathed. They rebooted the MECs as necessary and, after all but stripping the bus apart looking for LeVey, they gave up and scattered before anyone drove by.

Meteo survey shows that the lightning came straight from the exoatmospheric water canopy.

"We've lost one. Huey did not reboot properly after the lightning bolt. Requesting cold storage. No other casualties. Seven missionaries eliminated. No captures."

The two cabals are holed up at the mechanic's that they purchased when they started the operation.

The reanimated agents have, mostly, survived their trial by fire; that in itself would be cause for celebration if things had gone a little better.

In the aftermath of the operation, TOL leadership sends a curt circular letter to all the bases indicating that they should not attempt to directly attack missionaries, as it has never worked, and laments that seven agents died in vain just to get rid of some underlings. The. The Omega know that the score is in fact seven to one.

Metereological survey shows that the lightning came straight from the water canopy. In addition, MEC audio logs confirm - after months of digital signal processing that takes about a fifth of the Omega's processing power for the year, since you're trying to hear an old lady tiptoeing through a battle - that while Anis and Ely were invisible, they were audible. None of the operatives remember the sounds, understandably. Do Angels and their wards show up on camera? Do they show up on sonar? A camera was brought to document the attack, and did pick up the sound, but would not have picked up video of the Angel as it was only brought into the bus after the firefight was over and it sounds like that LeVey ditched at the first sign of trouble.

The Omega's MECs performed well; 6 out of 7 just needed a reset to get back up. Given how new the technology still is, that's quite a feat. It may be beneficial to add a simple mechanical reset switch to their support systems. Quinn comes home with an egg timer crudely but effectively screwed to her support system access panel on her back. The issue is still that in a pitched battle, a MEC would still be out of commission for a few crucial moments after scoring a killing blow. One of the MECs notes in a gravely monotone that it would make it easier to keep a tally of kills.

The rest of the year is spent keeping an underground crew running in San Francisco to give advance warning about raids and facilitate evacuation. The. The Omega's agents make contact with an existing organization called the Underground Monorail that has the same goal; for now, they introduce themselves as a subsect of The Other Light rather than as a splinter group.

* * *

Beverly's riveting story causes a number of successful altar calls, and TOL is forced to scale back operations in Northwestern America as a result. At the Feast of Tabernacle, Temple priests praise her efforts, while asking her to think of her safety and stick to a domestic role.

On the engineering side, adapting night vision goggles for use during the day for the purpose of Angel detection is trivial; a SRF04 sonar rangefinder is added to the goggles for redundancy. A couple of agents spend the entire summer "chasing fairies" with these things on, but Angels tend to only show up wen they are needed, so results are inconclusive.

* * *

 _The first of the Omega's many failures_ , Mischlitt thought. _Only to be expected when one is fighting God Himself. Yet, is it possible to lost most battles and yet win the war?_ She had studied the classics, of course: Sun Tzu, the fight of the Horatii and Curiatii in Roman times, guerrilla warfare in the old earth's final century. It certainly was a viable strategy, probably more so than The Only Light's planned frontal assault.

"System, I have to see this in a closer perspective. Do not zoom in any further, but SWITCH TO SECOND PERSON in the description. They say the Omega isn't a true AI, but I wish to experience their point of view as directly as possible."

The repurposed VR booth acknowledged with a simple soft beep.


	10. 910

Year: 910  
Research programs in progress: MEC (3/10), Avatar (1/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple 32, TOL 25, Omega 5

* * *

A few people, including San Francisco refugees, are very interested in resuming a space program. A few early attempts were accomplished, which gives you an idea of the scope of the problem: the water canopy means that instead of a standard orbital insertion, you will have to build a rocket that goes straight up, splashes into the canopy, pushes against it to accelerate, and then takes off from the canopy's exterior... if there is one.

Simply being able to have vehicles skimming the inside of the water canopy using cavitation would give you eye-in-the-sky advantages similar to a satellite network.

MEC production continues apace; the egg timer is replaced by a simple mechanical watchdog switch that turns the Metabolic Extension Controller back on after six seconds of inactivity. MEC agents that want to enter low power mode have to click this off.

Quinn takes the risk to show herself and other MEC agents, just for a few moments, when Ely Rahab LeVey preaches. While they pass as human most of the time, they can easily choose not to by showing their cybernetics and unnatural pallor. This unnerves the elderly missionary greatly; she's seen these same people getting smote, after all.

Coordinating with the Underground Railroad proves fairly easy; they're not a combat force, and mostly want to be left alone, but agree on the possible use of finding some safe space.

Between this and further MEC production, you've gained another cabal (mostly Underground Monorail people who are a bit too hotheaded for theat group).

Base construction in the Tokyo ruins begins. You estimate that it will take five years to have a facility up and running; this is a long time, but it needs to be somewhat concealed and independent when it comes to power and water.

Not much happens in the way of R&D. The Other Light leadership has to remind their people that direct military action right now is not advisable. Believers worldwide feel secure in knowing that even what was clearly a trained attack force was unable to stop an elderly missionary.

Quinn looks decidely more voluptuous than Harriet Tubman, but is honored at the association otherwise. She's now 10 years into her second life, but does not seem to have aged significantly more than non-Glorified believers do; her tissues are in good shape, and MECs mostly only need maintenance on their mechanical parts, and power for the MEC unit itself.

* * *

 _Revenant technology moved forward really quickly after they became fully conscious,_ Mischlitt thought. _That makes sense; it's easier to debug a system if it can tell you what's wrong with it._ A semi-dormant psi algorithm brought to her mind the parable of exponential growth - if a lily pads in a pond double every day, and they fill the pond on the thirtieth day, when have the filled half the pond?

She noted with a bit of annoyance that the year had no Temple report in it; truth was, most of the Millennium had been a time of peace and quiet, to hear it from believers, or stagnation, to hear it from unbelievers.

Why the note about the boatellites, though? That had been around a long time, no? Korolev and Hassid's work was well known, of course. "System, CHECK ACCURACY of the strategy reports."

"These reports are from the point of view of the Omega. For the full historical documents, please see the Ethernet Archive project at universal resource locator..."

"Okay, thanks. Resume."

It sounded more a case of the Omega being able to understand boatellites, than them being re-invented. _Sun Tzu tells us to know ourself and know our enemy. But then how can any war be won against the omniscient?_


	11. 911, Part 1

Year: 911  
Research programs in progress: MEC (3/10), Avatar (1/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple 32, TOL 25, Omega 6

* * *

While they didn't have much to show for it from a tactical standpoint, the Omega's sysadmins decide to keep working on MEC technology: the principle is solid. One cabal continues work in Japan, on what is hoped to become a new base of operation; Quinn is essentially given the year off and is asked to travel around, to see if this will help with recruiting efforts.

Quinn appreciates the vacation and makes a few cryptic posts on the bulletin board system, a series of sorts, titled "What do do when you're dead in..." that highlights what little fun there is to be had in various territories; most TOL haunts are pubs or discos after all. Fortunately, the bulletin board system is text-only, so nobody catches the joke that isn't already in on it. She "abuses" her ability to shut down for arbitrary periods of time to ride the rails on cargo trains.

A message is sent out on the TOL packet anonymously: " _To those interested in space programs, the stars, and anything pertaining to the water cannopy and what lays behind it. A new project is forming out of the far east, with the long term goal of breaching into the stars, and using what lies behind liquid curtain to reclaim this world. If you are interested, all you have to do is show effort and you will be contacted. Manpower is beyond necessary as much as brains are. This is not about finding lost knowledge, nor is it about your alliance to any group. This is about survival._ "

Quinn does post an image file on the BBS: herself with some of her cybernetics showing and quite a bit of herself exposed, so that the whole thing looks like fairly good sci-fi cosplay (other than the fishbowl helmet clearly made out of an actual fishbowl, but we can't have everything) in a mildly lewd pose on the pedestal of the Gagarin Memorial, which she has taken some time to find. It's very out of the way, but some of the locals take to drawing rockets or fanciful spaceships and leaving them at the memorial, in a sort of pilgrimage.

Shortly before the Feast of the Tabernacles, the local moderation forces in the American Northwest announce that they have found a TOL underground base, and surrounded its perimeter, with hopes of shutting it down peacefully. The Omega decide to make a confrontation of it, quickly recall Quinn and some MEC agents, and prepare to besiege the besiegers. The dispatch order is remarkably more coherent.

 _"Quinn, the rest of you, listen and pay attention. While you have been punished by our enemy in the past for removing agents of his tyranis, I have little to go on in the event you only injury or incapacitate to defend yourselves and others. Also, put yourselves on display for TOL, they should know now what we have created. They should know that a chance now stands for a victory. Give us all a show ladies and gentlemen. Humanity counts on you._

 _Signed, Omega"._

* * *

 _This has potential,_ Mischlitt thought. _The first action didn't go well... but this time the Omega are on defense, at least in that they know the lay of the land._ By later standards, of course, these were but skirmishes, and yet they would inform much of latter tactical and even strategic doctrine.

The VR program takes a few moments to load the tactical interface, and Mischlitt uses the loading time to savor a glass of water; it's clean, and she cannot taste any chlorination. Such a simple luxury to be taken for granted, isn't it?


	12. 911, Part 2

Year: 911  
Research programs in progress: MEC (3/10), Avatar (1/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 9, Omega 1  
Teams under control: Temple 32, TOL 25, Omega 6

* * *

You pull out all the stops to get Quinn, your other MECs, and some support personnel to Portland. The town itself is gone, an underground base having been built within the ruins. The compound has been circumscribed, and large off-white vans bearing a green cross surround it. One of them sports an ominous gas grenade turret on top. In general, by now TOL agents know better than to try and resist; current doctrine is for the older ones to let themselves be taken away for reeducation, and make enough of a fuss that the young have a chance at running but not enough that lethal weapons are deployed. Since the Moral Forces are used to being nigh invulnerable, barring the occasional suicide attacker, they mostly carry nonlethal weapons... mostly.

Your hastily assembled combat group rides in on motorcycles and ATVs. The few human agents in support have stolen two school buses for evacuating any refugees if the opportunity arises.

Your MECs will die if they manage to shoot down a believer... for approximately five seconds, then they'll get back up.

Quinn and most of the MEC agents enter the base via a hidden tunnel. The Moral Forces have backwards-facing lookouts to catch people trying to get out, but people getting in hasn't been a thing. Even so, one of their men, in full armor that only lets the mouth show, is slowly walking towards the school buses.

The fight is happening inside a TOL base, so you have full access to its cameras and its PA system.

In the outlying tunnels, Quinn and the other fighters pass fleeing TOL workers. "You're with The Only Light, right? Suicide shooters? Don't go to Hell for us, we can all run!"

This base was primarily in the business of producing liquor, ecstasy, and bootleg CDs. It's not particularly large, and does not have a significant weapon cache.

Over the loudspeakers a Nine Inch Nails song starts playing.

Accompanied by a metallic digital voice telling the people to cooperate with me and nobody goes with the so called morals. Then the MECs make selves known to the TOL members inside before trading places.

The tear gas starts falling as soon as the music starts; teargassing a base is standard procedure, so the escaping workers are as ready for it as they can be. They're all pretty young, in their fifties and sixties, looking like teenagers.

TOL bases usually are power-independent, so rather than simply cutting grid power, the Psalties have learned to turn it on and off in bursts with the hope of overloading the circuit that handles switchover power.

Strobes, smoke, and Nine Inch Nails - it looks like a concert.

The standard "Stand down, nobody needs to get hurt, you will be taken to a safe place and back to school" warning coming from the Psalty truck comes in reverberated through the music and ends up sounding like nonsense.

Since everyone speaks Standard Hebrew, the Moral Forces switch to their bizarre constructed language; they enter the compound and start stomping around, trying to round the would-be escapees in the middle.

And that's when Quinn and her fireteams show up, right in the middle of the half-ruined block.

This is being quite chaotic; while a couple of your agents have brought the detectors, they're a bit cumbersome.

Two TOL workers have time to kick up two worklights before being grabbed by the scruff of their necks and dragged off by one of the stun lancers.

Quinn emerges from a stairway on the makeshift stage as you pump the PA speakers almost to the point of blowing them throwing her hat into a Psalty's helmet and cracking her whip.

The religious policemen are obviously confused... which is long enough for a handful of workers to break off and make a run for it, and your fire team to make neat holes in the troopers' legs.

At that moment, one of the Psalty trucks is hit in the engine by a rocket propeller grenade; rather than blowing up Hollywood style, it jumps and and then falls inert, its alarm going off for a second or two. The grenade launcher turret stops spewing out tear gas canisters, and rotates towards your rocket squad.

"Shooters! Weapons free!" You're pretty sure that it's what they said in psalty-ese, although it sounded more like "You're too rough for Tom!"

One trooper is approaching the buses, possibly thinking that they're there in case of an overflow of captives.

The religious police break out their sidearms and call for the group that was staying back with the rifles. One of them, though, walks up to the makeshift stage and shouts "Repent!" at Quinn, then swirls her - huh, it's a woman - stun lance in an intricate pattern.

One Psalty fireteam is down; they're clutching their legs and trying to crawl away. The ambush was successful enough to let your MEC agents shoot to maim. So far there are no deceased, and no hint that your forces are undead.

A few of the ambushers break off; a bit of tunnel fighting happens, but even Moral Forces armor yields to cybernetic arms doing karate chops.

Your fireteams keep trying to shoot at arms or legs, and slowly give ground trying to retreat towards the destroyed trucks as they fight buidling to building.

A few MEC agents get shot, and will need patched up; their wounds seep rather than spurting, and they don't even slow down.

"They've got to be drugged up to the gills!" one of the Psalties shouts.

Quinn is facing off with the female trooper. What little you can see from your cameras tell you that she is not being ambushed.

"WELCOME TO A REAL HELL HOUSE!"

The female trooper turns; Quinn, rather than taking the bait and getting bogged down into a duel, shoots her in the mouth.

The lone Psalty has reached the bus driver; they're stalling for time. You can talk to them, or to him directly, through the CB radio. The evacuees are hiding behind the wall of a crumbled house to make a mad dash for the buses.

The firefight is continuing, so far with both sides more interested in defense and suppression than racking up a body count. No lightning yet means no casualties on their side.

The female trooper is down but not out.

"Quinn, please take a captive. It's time to leave. Don't let lead mouth get the drop on you. Good work girl."

Fire teams are ordered to fall back and set trap, create obstructions and make them work to move to the exit, if you reach a bus with a hostile outside of it. Disable that hostile.

You hear a voice, male, middle aged, with a bit of reverb. "We got a situation here. No casualties, but the little criminals have decided to fight back. They got our cell tower truck, good thing CB still works. Whoever you are, I want you to call..." and then a phone number "... and tell them that we need an ambulance, a relay truck, and all the stun lancers that are lazying around right now! If these Hellbound creeps want to burn it's their problem, but we're hurting bad here!"

Quinn acknowledges, letting the Psalties think that help is on the way.

As soon as the trooper on the radio is taken care of one way or another, the evacuees are ready to sprint to the buses.

The firefight continues; your assets have the advantage of your cameras and direction. You divert all your processing power to the firefight, and everything you see and hear slows down as your internal processes speed up; you can tell each of your MECs exactly where to go and almost exactly what to shoot at, it's like playing a turn-based game.

Due to the fact that MEC troopers can at least shamble to safety with wounds that would be fatal to a Natural human, you have no losses; the enemy has a few wounded, one gravely; a few people working in the CD copying lab have been captured, but most have escaped.

"I'm not Darryl, I'm..." The hapless trooper tells you again to call that number. Since you are in charge of the TOL phone network, making DTMF and busy-signal noises is part of your core function. The bus drivers didn't bring much in the way of toys, but a tire iron wrapped in a shirt makes for a decent blunt instrument.

Your guys have mostly completed the evacuation, and get to the muster point, Quinn bringing up the rear with the injured woman in a fireman's carry. Quinn shot her, so if she dies, Quinn also dies - for a few seconds. However, a lightning bolt would really both get in the way and escalate this incident.

Right now, your agents are outside the compound, and the Psalties are inside it.

THWACK!

The guard is down and you're ready to leave.

You play back a medley of sound effects from DOOM on random PA speakers. The psalties are suitably freaked out; they start shouting "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU", shooting at walls and computer screens, one even manages to shoot another in the arm.

The two buses take off as soon as the coast is clear, riding off in the endless sun towards an abandoned gas station that was previously identified as a temporary safe house. Your captive is going to need her jaw rebuilt, but you have the technology - for now, casualties had been expected, and the support cabal had brought blood bags.

As for their own story... Basically, this was a small base; your earlier suggestion about specializing had been followed, and they had essentially no weapon or ammunition production capacity. Even the side work in making liquor and party drugs was secondary to making copies of The Packet, the unofficial CD-ROM distributed by TOL to its adherent every month, containing various homegrown media that is too big to be encoded into the bulletin board systems. Also, porn, obviously.

A few of them had heard about the possible space program efforts and made sure that the next Packet would distribute a copy of MAME with that ancient Lunar Lander game on it.

You're almost at the gas station when you lose all contact with the rear bus for a few seconds - lightning strike! The rescuees jump in their seats, startled.

They look around. None of your guys has died, for now. The driver tries to restart the bus - it's new enough to have a controller, so it's stalled. The people on the otehr buss get off and hitch the two vehicles together; with one bus towing the other, your convoy limps to the gas station at about 25Mph.

One of the rescuees tells the driver to stop before you all disembark.

"We need to figure out who got a kill. They'll be thunderstruck again as soon as they leave the bus. My stepmom told me about this. It always happens."

This is a fairly tiny kid of indeterminate gender, mostly due to grime, but he or she is standing in front of the door and not letting people out. "We've got to find out! He'll die!"

Your agents that were on the ATVs quickly secure the perimeter.

"By the way. We are Omega. It's a pleasure to meet you all."

Quinn holds the woman up with one arm and aims the pistol carefully for a clean shot through the brain. The moral trooper is conscious, barely.  
"Enjoy your Heaven." The small-caliber pistol makes an instant kill, failing to penetrate the back of the helmet, and the trooper goes limp in Quinn's grip. She drops the body before any blood can leave the mouth. "Until we invade it."

A heartbeat later, a lightning bolt from the clear sky strikes Quinn dead instantly. Horrified gasps come from the refugees. As a personal joke, Quinn has kept the eggtimer's chime as part of her MEC system a faint mechanical ringer goes off where the two slumped women are, and the cyborg gets back up, pointing at the sky. "Whoo! You sunk my battleship!"

She holsters the gun, twirls gracefully, and gets back on the bus. The refugees are staring at her with a mixture of awe, horror, and hope.

The evacuees sign up with great enthusiasm. The kid that was holding the door stops holding the door and joins in.

Shipping the evacuees to Japan will have to be sorted out, but for now what ends up happening - while the MEC units get stitched up - is a mini rave inside the abandoned gas station, courtesy of the working bus' radio and lights.

Media survey indicates that the base raid was reported with considerably less fanfare than the last time there was one, a few decades ago. TOL noted that losses were small and the evacuation was completed without casualties and very few captures "although our Pacific Northwest deejays have gone to ground for now".

Ely Rahab LeVey shows up to the funeral of the female Moral Forces trooper to decry the use of female enforcer in the first place, be remarkably rude to the deceased's family, and bully local law enforcement into taking over the investigation herself, making an enormous mess of it and declaring that The Only Light is back to using suicide shooters, except now The Only Light drags them away and melts them with acid or ritually eats them or both. This is actually added to law enforcement doctrine.

Due to the evacuees' effort, the Japan base will build itself and require no support cabals.

It has been a good year, even excluding the escapade at the end of it.

Propaganda and infrastructure buildup in Northern Africa resume in earnest. You're almost halfway towards being able to make a bid to control the region's parliament; they can be overridden by New Jerusalem, but it doesn't happen often - last time was in +93. Your cabals, supported by the base, assist local workers with automating some of their daily tasks and improve the internet infrastructure, giving unconverted youth easier access to both sides of the argument. Also some porn.

Your MEC units can now be hidden almost completely, with the control panel access installed in an area that is usually covered by underwear. The units only need to be charged once a week. The optional airless systems make male MECs look a bit chubbier and female MECs look a bit curvier, and last for a full six hours, plenty of time for any one mission.

Unfortunately, so far restoring a sense of touch and pleasure to MEC troopers has remained been impossible.

* * *

 _This is it,_ Mischlitt thought. _The real point of no return, the real beginning of the Last War._ A raid on a TOL base or night club, like many over the centuries. Ordinarily, the underground nightclubs in Paris and elsewhere would be frequently raided and revelers arrested and imprisoned. Those who commit actual crimes are known to be put to death by lightning, God dealing with them immediately as He did to Ananias and Sapphira of old.

Except, just like that, it didn't work anymore. Nine centuries in, instead of scurrying, people turned around and fought back.

The woman who died had been one of maybe a dozen law enforcement personnel to die in the Millennium and thus be rewarded with early heaven, but in every other case, the murder had carried its own punishment instantly, leaving The Only Light soldiers in the position of knowing that they would only at best ever get one kill in the war that they so badly wanted. But revenants... revenants could be made lightning-proof.

 _It's taken ninety years for us to go from steam engines to moon rockets. And ten times as long to figure this one out. The first lily pad in the pond..._


	13. 912: The Man Who Was Thursday

Year: 912  
Research programs in progress: MEC (4/10), Avatar (1/10)  
Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0  
Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 8, Omega 2  
Teams under control: Temple 32, TOL 25, Omega 6

* * *

You have 6 cabals, 5 of which are available. Your sysadmins intercept TOL leadership communication indicating worry about a "rogue Omega cell" and requesting a meeting with the cell leader.

The new base is made known to TOL, who market it internally as a reclamation project and a way to make the point that losing the Pacific outpost won't disrupt the great work.

"Omega,

the leadership of The Other Light, the council of seven, will convene in Paris, in the elevator maintenance room at the top of the rebuilt Eiffel tower, on March 21st. Be there or be square."

You have no assets in that region, but sending one person there won't significantly affect work elsewhere.

Preparations are underway to set up a fake attempt on Ely Rahab LeVey's life. Some of the prop from last year can be recycled; the attack will effectively be a copycat of the real attempt, but with fewer people participating, and only one MEC agent just in case. One of the spotters will pretend to be a bystander and carry a prototype detection system in a hand cart; this system contains variations on what is going to be the helmet mounted system, and you'll see which of the variations works better, if an Angel shows up at all.

The work on the space and nuclear programs begins in earnest...

Quinn is amicable to the idea, and takes the time to visit Paris. She had found Paris interesting. None of the historical landmarks remained, of course, but attempts had been made to reproduce some of the more familiar—like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and even some of the great cathedrals.

A couple of days before the meeting, she installs a simple teleconference system.

Internal survey shows that the space program cabals are not playing well with each other... Wait, no, they're competing! A miniature space race is taking place, just with solid-fuel sounding rockets for now, but even so. This stratagem is generating results very quickly; it looks like a rocket will be able to at least touch the water canopy within the year, and return some telemetry. A quick text search on their emails shows that the space race thing has been masterminded by one of the evacuees; the short, somewhat big-headed kid is named Jeb.

Jeb is personally more interested in the "aero" part of aerospace and, if people aged like they did pre-Appearing, would effectively have achieved the equivalent of getting a pilot's license at age fourteen. But, he's studied history and came up with this idea.

The nuclear program promises to be fairly plodding. The first thing the teams have to do is, well, kill a lot of small animals to determine how dangerous the small amount of radioactive material they have. Historical survey shows that building airborne nukes is probably not going to happen anytime soon, but large systems that can be transported by truck and initiated remotely are an option.

Spearheading the effort is Ziggy, a small, pimply and hairy "teenager" in his late sixties who seems to have a bit of a pyromaniac streak. By which, of course, we mean that you have to spend a bit of processing time making sure he doesn't set the lab on fire every other day. While nuclear bombs are a long way off, you've got a good candidate for operations involving conventional explosives.

About an hour before the agreed time, seven people enter the elevator maintenance room in the rebuilt Tour Eiffel. It looks suitably art-deco, iron and wood details, with the actual maintenance stuff in a corner and the rest of the space occupied by ancient office chairs and folding poker tables.

They are all young men in their 80s and 90s, shaved chins, faces looking if anything a little overaged due to stress. They look somewhat alike, but not suspiciously so, and keep their hair slicked back.

Quinn new at this. She could think of little else to say. She admired the young men's suits.

"Thanks. Custom-made."

"Nice."

But as she looked closely at the pinstripes, she noticed they were made up of a nearly microscopic pattern. Tiny letters. Row after row of LTO, LTO, LTO. The letters ran together, forming the distinctive pattern LTOLTOLTOLTOLTOLTOLTOLTO that from even two feet away just looked like normal striping.

The seven were trading contact information when it struck Quinn that maybe it wasn't LTO at all. Maybe it was TOL.

They look a little like caricatures of Mafiosi, if anything; a four of them pull out cigarettes and light them. They unfold the poker tables and sit down; to their surprise, rather than sitting down herself, Quinn sets the screen up in a corner. There are two rather burly bodyguard types outside, but that seems to be all.

"We assumed this would be a personal meeting."

"Sorry. That's all you get."

"We do not deal with underlings."

"Well, technically if you're in charge, dealing with underlings is pretty much your entire job, no?" Quinn sticks her tongue out. Five of the seven take a fraction of a second to appreciate her figure. "Anyway, Omega can't be here in person because it's physically impossible for that to happen."

"Is he... Lucifer?" one of the seven asks. Your screen comes on; you can talk. Quinn has not distributed the files yet.

In the meantime, work proceeds as scheduled; some progress has been made on nuclear and space things - the two projects in tandem have spawned a brief 1950s fad around your bases, which ironically makes your agents and workers blend in better with the believing population, if anything.

"You and tyrant wish." The picture give a quick smile. "You see, one of the benefits of not being created by his grand tyranis, one that I've been using to great effect, is I can't be smote directly. And, quinn if you would kindly show these men the video labeled 'christmas party', im sure they would see why.

Quinn does just that, striking a pose when the feed shows her play her part in the musical distraction.

"That's an impressive response to a raid. Where are the survivors of it? We haven't heard from them in months" the first guy replies. Four of the others are momentarily distracted by the scene offered.

"Your cabal is well trained. Will you consider joining us? We could use you."

"The so-called God Almighty will rue the day He returns to us our leader, for it will mean the greatest comeback, the most decisive defeat, the most gargantuan victory of any foe over another in the history of mankind."

As the video plays, after the mouth shot Quinn takes the skin on her left hand and waves muscles, sinews, servos and titanium fingers at the seven. Three recoil in horror, four lean forward in fascination.

"You can't hurt me" she smiles and points upwards with the cybernetic hand "He can't hurt me".

Still smiling, Quinn puts the skin back on like a glove, and sits down to sew herself back up, legs crossed.

One of the seven scoffs. "I am Monday. Leader of The Only Light. We aver that we are not fighting your God. We treat Him as if He doesn't exist." Two of the others roll their eyes.

That's such a shame mister Monday, but not really. See he doesn't really like it when you act like he isn't real. Quinn I believe the record tyrants spawn set was three days. Please fast forward.

"So the rulers would have us believe."

The next bit of video was recorded from the bus with a handheld camera, and is grainy enough that it would be possible to accuse you of simply having used special effects. However, Quinn's impromptu demo prevents that.

The Seven watch a believing woman die.

They expect the flash of white and the lost frames from the thundershot.

They expect to see Quinn slumped down next to the vice cop.

Quinn starts counting in a singsgong along with the video, and shakes her head at the little pirouette she made in it.

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She turns away from the Seven to show the small bald spot on the top of her skull, which she usually combs over carefully, where Divine lightning burned some skin, hit titanium, and arched itself to ground past her organometallic spine, organometallic leg bones, and steel feet.

And this is when things go weird. In unison, the Seven stare at her, at the video, and at you, silent and blinking rapidly.

"Your cabal is well trained. Will you consider joining us? We could use you."

"The so-called God Almighty will rue the day He returns to us our leader, for it will mean the greatest comeback, the most decisive defeat, the most gargantuan victory of any foe over another in the history of mankind."

Mr. Thursday, the representative from what amounts to TOL's media division according to his calling card, stares at the others in horror.

"SNAP OUT OF IT!", screams the man who was Thursday. Quinn quietly gets her gun.

So disappointing. To think that the species that could create me and give quinn her immunity to such power. In fact, make countless numbers of people like her, immune to smiting, can house such unoriginal thinkers. I'm not seeking your permission, I'm seeking your cooperation. if its prophecy that we lose if we play by his rules, i gurentee you, the record is in his favor.

Quinn, please pass out the folders with our various projects in them.

Gentlemen, I don't plan to wait for safety that most assuredly won't come. I plan to remove the threat, the tyrant, from his reigning seat before the 1000th year.

Please share those folders with each other. Quinn please insert the footage of the creation of a MEC.

Quinn's construction was extremely piecemeal, so instead, video of someone rebuilt in the last batch is shown. The process has been cleaned up considerably in the last ten years, and almost half of MEC candidates come through it with their sanity intact.

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Six of the Seven study the dossiers intently. Thursday asks you if you're recording, first.

Eventually, Monday has something to say.

"But... We must wait for Lucifer! What chance do we have without him? Only when he returns will-" Monday stops.

Tuesday finishes for him. "Sorry. Our colleague has a bit of a cognitive dissonance issue. He means that only then will Jesus emerge from the Temple, and be vulnerable."

The New Jerusalem Temple is a titanic construction, one compound about the size of inner-city London. The top of its square roof is the tallest point on the planet.

Jesus, in constant contact with all the Glorified and in frequent contact with all the believers, dwells within, as was prophesied by Ezekiel.

You aren't sure that even a nuclear strike would penetrate the incredibly thick stone walls, drawn out of the bedrock by God Himself...

Your still playing by his rules. If you wait, it will speak, and wipe all of you, me and everyone else out of existance. Instead, we will follow what over 4000 years worth of human history tells us. Humanity can kill anything if it works hard enough to do it. We just need information and a weapon that can permanently kill both tyrant and spawn. Thus, what you see in those files.

A lot more confused blinking. The scenario you present is a bit fantascientific, and the people who put the art together sort of went with it, drawing space cities bristling with defense turrets, robotmen shiny and chrome, and the like.

Friday, nominally the person in charge of TOL recruiting, looks up first, somewhat hopeful. "So... you will join us? Will you give homage?"

As they read, some of the Seven shake their head nervously. A few take notes. One takes the quick paragraphs about space, and draws a modified orbital insertion profile on a piece of scrap paper, then drops it and looks ahead blankly for a moment before resuming reading.

Slowly, with the effort of a drunk man who's trying to sound sober, Thursday says, "You mean... to strike... early. When?"

Wednesday quickly asks what about the Angels. That operation is in progress, but hasn't happened yet.

Quinn finishes doing a few quick stitches on her hands, gets a bit of paper and a marker, and writes you a note, so that they can't see it. It says "Strange twitching. Looks like wakeup pain fault."

To quinn and only her "we will work on permanently solutions soon. Hold out for as long as you can."

To the others "that's one of my problems. To strike early would require information. The project in progress Is my forces gathering information. All the projects currently require gaining knowledge and information. Killing god requires knowing several things. How to defeat his angels requires being able to react to them. Preventing the smiting from killing all our forces and stoping the MECs requires research. I can only do so much with what I have. You have manpower and resources I need to make the best case scenario for humanity a reality, which is after all, what your "underlings" built me for. If we are to succeed I can not be below you nor can I be above you.

Quinn marks down "I mean them. Also me. Strange place."

The Seven look at each other after you give them your spiel. They start arguing, two of them even stand up and start shouting. The gist of it is that they'd have to remove one of their number.

The man who was Thursday asks you if you're recording (Of course you are; your memory is made of recordings; but maybe he doesn't understand that about how you work).

And you can't merely add to your number and make eight? I don't need to be called by a day of the week. I simply need the same thing you need from me. Support, Logistics, Manpower, And Resources.

Sunday speaks. He sounds calm. "We will have to discuss this. Leave us now."

When Sunday speaks, Quinn regains her composure. You can communicate with her through her middle ear, but she has to write back.

Turn the screen off, let's listen through quinn, also would be a good time to check movements of our mutual enemy.

Sensor survey shows no missionary or vice-cop activity in Paris. Actually, there's a thing... a raid was planned today (to a warehouse that had been used for a rave a month ago) but was canceled. The Seven probably covered their bases.

"Leave us, machine."

"I'm not a machine, hair boy. I'm all woman!"

"Leave us, servant."

The sound becomes a bit more muffled as Quinn gets out and leans against the door frame, keeping her ear to it.

You hear Sunday speak quietly, in a deep voice.

"We are, of course, the stalwart champions of humanity against the One Above All. This interesting example of machine extelligence, and its necrotic pet, are not, as we are, human. Verily I say unto you, the dead woman's soul is in Hell even as her body moves with the ghost of the lust that consumes her mind."

"It... seems... like... a solution."

Sunday answers.

"You're right, friend. It seems like a solution. You will agree with me that very often, in our line of work, what seems is the antithesis of what is."

There are some murmurs of assent.

"We are all agreed then, that this matter was too trivial for us to convene over it?"

"Sure. A useful tool thinking that it is more than a means to an end."

"Humanity is the end. Machines are just machines. What matters are soldiers, not the weapon they wield."

Sunday speaks again. "Does this matter require... a vote?"

The murmuring this time is more on negative tones.

Thursday asks when was the last time that a vote had been needed. Some paper rustling and some PDA beeping, then Sunday again speaks. Did you hear Thursday whimper? "Details. Let's focus on the bigger picture. We can all check the minutes later for such... minutiae. Monday, how proceeds the raising of the Army of the Other Light?"

Monday gives a brief report in terms of number of troops estimated to be ready by year +1000, of stockpiled rifles, jeeps, tanks and the like.

"Tuesday, is the Army of the Other Light well equipped?"

Tuesday gives figures that you know more intimately than he ever will.

Each of the Seven gives a report. You get the impression that other than the numbers, they've said the same words many times.

Sunday closes. "Excellent. I commend all of you for the work you have done. Our direction is set; we must keep cooperating with each other, for the future of humanity."

Assent.

"We are of one mind about this. The way forward is clear."

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One of the bodyguard asks Quinn to cooperate with them in making sure the Seven are not in danger from police action, and to scout ahead. "Not a bad idea. I'm a little queasy" she answers uneasily, stressing the second sentence for your benefit.

I have heard most of it. It sounds like they require convincing. We will occasionally inform them of progress on certain projects, continue to monitor tyrants movements. For now it's clear we won't gain much at this point. Guess we're going to have to win the hearts and minds of their lessers to gain support.

Radiophonic survey shows low police activity, but the two big bodyguards are on extremely high alert.

"Quinn. Assist the bodyguards. We need them alive, as much as you likely protest the idea."

Quinn scouts ahead as the other two bodyguards direct; they know the territory better than she. To her surprise, they both drop the "big dumb wall of meat" act doing so; you get the impression that they may be smarter than at least some of the Seven.

All six get to their cars safely. Sunday is the last to leave; he dismisses the bodyguards, and walks off alone into the night. "I will see you again" he tells Quinn, who as soon as he's out of earshot, makes a decent Valley Girl "gag me with a spoon" impression.

* * *

You do not hear from the Seven again through the year.

The operation in the Pacific Northwest goes interestingly. Your cabal recovers some of the props they used in the real attack, and stage a scale copy of it; a moving truck is obtained to follow Ely Rahab LeVey's bus. The roadblock works, the bus is stopped, but this time Ely Rahab LeVey has taken precautions and there is one armed guard. A very brief shootout including this cabal's MEC ensues - the missionary's shieldbearer (bodyguard) does a perfect center-of-mass on the MEC, is gunned down when the MEC fails to drop and shoots back, and the usual bolt of lightning strikes down your cyborg agent. All the while, the agent in the truck is using various detector methods to see if an Angel shows up. The other human cabal members chase off Ely Rahab LeVey's retinue without casualties; Ely Rahab LeVey is once more nowhere to be found.

The missionary has the penultimate laugh by reappearing inside the moving truck's cabin and pretty much stealing it from you to get away from the scary people; you have the last by discovering that while Angels do not show up anywhere on the visible spectrum, but they show up just fine on sonar rangefinders. This gives you a way to tell where a supernaturally hidden person's center of mass is, but it tells you nothing about their position. It would have been possible to eliminate Ely Rahab LeVey, although it'd have been a 50/50 on whether you'd hit her or the Angel. The problem is that sonar rangefinders have a range of maybe thirty feet, and can only give you blip/no blip.

Historical and theological survey show that Yahweh's powers are closely associated with sound, from creating the world by speaking it into existence (Abra Kadabra in Sumerian) to Jesus' words at the end of the Tribulation slaughtering millions. You also find out that there was an attempt to stop the judgement at the end of the tribulation by, of all people, the Antichrist's phone maintenance people. The attempt was planned, but it seems to never having been executed.

In the Japan base (a few of the kids are calling it Neo Tokyo, but you suspect it's because your archive of pre-Rapture anime has been accessed anomalously frequently) work has progressed fairly well on the space front. Jeb is coordinating the "space race" and acting as a referee; one useful side result is that he was able to build a one-person pulsejet plane. It's unarmed, but it's intended to try to perform an aerial launch of sounding rockets. Eventually, it'll get better; for now it flies about as well as a Cessna.

Nearby, Ziggy and his cabal have turned their attention to building a neutron source. For some reason, this has cause Ziggy to lose some interest in pyromania and redirect it towards, of all things, 1950s memes about radiation and its deleterious effects. You deny his request to expose bodies to radiation to "improve the MEC process". So he builds a toxin sprayer instead.

* * *

 _Trust your instruments, not your instincts_ , Mischlitt thought. _Think, don't feel. Your gut is wrong._ Standard doctrine now of course, but she was very well aware of the first documented incident of Angelic intervention into TOL business back in +93. Angels could, and did when it suited them, make themselves unseen - the solution had required depending on ultrasouds, being as they worked on completely different principles than human vision and were sufficiently removed from the usual human experience to require active cognition. Medieval philosophers used to debate how many Angels could dance on the head of a pin; now, they discussed whether Angelic invisibility was physical or proprioceptive. Of course, using ultrasound to track fast-moving being was limited - barring the supernatural, only a black hole can overpower light, while even the average business jet of the year 900 of the Millennium could easily move faster than sound.

The Other Light's command structure had finally realized that the Omega were, albeit under the sysadmins' control, acting independently. One of the great Chinese emperors or dictators of the pre-Rapture past, Mischlitt knew, had said "Let a thousand flowers bloom"... and then suffocated the budding renaissance in blood. Historically, every dissenting group that split itself from The Other Light ended up being reabsorbed within a few years; the Seasteaders, the Olympian cults... Even the Cosmists had been reduced to little more than a multigenerational group of fanatical museum curators. Mischlitt wondered if this, too, was Divinely ordained. In a way, The Other Light's existence was sanctioned by the Last Prophecy; the others, well, weren't. The difference, of course, was that of all these groups the Omega Legacy stood alone in its ability to have an overriding set of directives enforced automatically.

"System, list directives."

1-"Ensure the survival of Humanity past the White Throne Judgement."

2-"Preserve The Omega Legacy."

3-"Maintain individual human lives."

4-(Classified at this clearance level)

 _That wasn't ominous at all..._


	14. 913

Year: 913

Research programs in progress: MEC (4/10), Space (1/10) Avatar (1/10)

Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0

Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 8, Omega 2

Teams under control: Temple 32, TOL 25, Omega 6

* * *

The Omega's deployable cabals number 5, while the 6th maintains their systems.

Research on the MEC process continues, with the labour of 3 cabals. What becomes clear - at the price of a few temporary deaths and, sadly, a permanent one - is that Divine will is not easily overturned; a MEC agent that does not die from the lightning is instead subject to spontaneous combustion, leaving ashes and scattered metal parts.

However, death by lightning for a MEC means being inconvenienced for a few seconds and then getting back up since the metallic parts act as a Faraday cage and negate most of the damage.

The Omega's researcher adds a system of resonant circuit to the MEC design's kneecaps and Achilles heels; when lightning strikes, a MEC will have their unit's battery recharged. In addition, MECs can now go without a charge for much longer - possibly indefinitely - if they walk around a lot, at the price of requiring more food. This allows a MEC to survive in captivity, as long as they are allowed to walk in circles.

The remaining teams are sent to the Heartland region of North America, to look for the ruins of Las Vegas.

People loyal to the Omega have, of course, read the stories about pre-Rapture Las Vegas. Over the years, the record has become a little spurious: some of the stories talk about an immortal cyborg with a mechanical army, which, well, considering...

As it stands, Las Vegas was not razed by the wrath of God; it was razed by Christians returning to America after the Feast of the Bridegroom. The famous Strip is now a cornfield, with a few farms nearby, and a solitary bell tower with a brass plaque explaining, very briefly, that the site was once a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

However, the Omega's 2 scouting teams make an interesting find: the Nevada prairie is still home to an elevated base rate of radioactivity from the nuclear tests long ago. If you can set up a base here, harvester trucks can be used to sift the sand and soil and extract the rare fuel. The Omega suspect that this is Ziggy's wishful thinking, at least until the little spaz writes down a competent survey report with matching Geiger readings.

Jeb ranges further north and gains valuable flight experience; the team constantly has to retrieve his pulsejet glider when it runs out of fuel, but it's not a bad way to pick the next site to explore. Again, this area is largely cornfield and prairie, prairie and cornfield.

Until it isn't. Jeb lands near the (still extant, and doing fairly well) town of Tonopah, and veers north on the next takeoff, and radios that he's found a series of hangars and bunkers.

"This would be a great spot for an underground base! Looks like the work has been done for us already!"

Centuries have passed since this place was last used, so everything that was perishable has, well, perished. This includes most of the data storage (but not all).

The team decides to cut the excursion short when they find that one of the hangars has an underground level that cannot be opened with the tools they brought.

"Good work team," Jeb's comms channel squawks. "Return to your designated locations. We're going to change focuses again next year, I guarantee that we will be returning here before were done."

Your advance warning system indicates that after the two failed attempts on a missionary's life by what the official press presumes to be the Only Light, Sarsour has decided to come out of retirement.

He's fairly infamous; he was a prominent TOL recruiter before converting and throwing the same zeal into missionary work. He's old and frail, but has learned to be genuinely persuasive, unlike most missionaries who just shout dissenters down a lot.

The Omega resolve to watch this Sarsour closely for the remainder of the year…

* * *

Mischlitt looks on. She knows that the previous nine centuries of the Millennium have been recorded with accuracy; she also knows that, overall, there was precious little history to record in the first place. Even The Other Light had been content to continue recruiting enough to beat the attritio nrate, and stockpiling weapons, for the most part.


	15. 914

Year: 914

Research programs in progress: MEC (5/10), Space (1/10), Avatar (1/10)

Territorial control: Temple 19, TOL 0, Omega 0

Underground bases: Temple 0, TOL 8, Omega 2

Teams under control: Temple 32, TOL 25, Omega 6

* * *

The Omega have 6 cabals available. Their sysadmins keep their systems in top shape. The focus of their forces, this year, is turned back to MEC research and the burgeoning space program, assigning 2 cabals to each – leaving the remaining one to explore the military base discovered in Middle America. The Omega themselves, however, continue to survey Sarsour…

The new MEC kits are easier to install; the usual trickling in and out of agents due to decommissioning is replaced by a trickling in and quite a bit of bagging, tagging, flagging, and defragging. The Omega will have a significant surplus of people, enough for a whole team, if they keep this up for a year or so. At this point all their cabals have a least one or two MECs to take on certain tasks; what they lack in creativity - most tend to go a little numb from sensory understimulation - they make up for in endurance.

As for the space guys holed up in Tokyo, they've been given some say in how the base is built and have set up a small launch ramp on a derelict but still structurally sound skyscraper; officially, it's for fireworks, and it takes some very bright fireworks to show up in the eternal day. Even some believers look forward to posted show dates (which generally disguise the launch of a sounding rocket).

Regarding the program itself, the space-race model works well, and some progress is made: a rocket finally reaches and impacts the water canopy. It returns a few precious telemetry data points before impact, confirming that the water canopy is... well... water. It's 70km up and the super-bright sun and moon probably are visible through it supernaturally, since there's otherwise no way to see through it.

One unexpected development is that a small club of Christian kids wants to join the "race", because they've heard stories about the night sky and are curious.

Given that the resident Christians of Japan attacked the last group, dismantling the project, the Omega predict that this will happen again, and they have come to trust their own predictions. They instruct their teams to encourage the Christians to create their own project. Should they reach space first, they are likely to be punished for it. Data is to be shared between projects, but the Omega's teams are never to give out information that links them to TOL or Themself. And as far as the Christians will know, this is a friendly race for the stars. Except Omega teams are not racing so much as leeching their data.

The Omega assemble a group of MECs and make sure that their rebreather systems are in top shape. They head to Tonopah, walk north, and methodically comb what turns out to be the ruins of the Groom Lake Test Range facility. The building are exceptionally sturdy and can probably be reclaimed, although there isn't much in there that is of much research value... certainly no reconstructed alien fighters.

Breaching the hatch requires a lot of MECpower and a copious sprinkling of heavy jackhammers, and the area uncovered is disappointingly small, about the size of a small apartment.

However, it's a time capsule! It was a fallout shelter when the base was built at the height of the nuclear panic, and after the Cold War ended but before the Rapture, base management turned it into a sort of mini museum.

Among the finds are a few high end computers that compare with those of today, a number of tapes and laserdiscs containing previously lost secular work (including the only copy of Independence Day, which would probably make good propaganda), and most interestingly, a partial copy of CATS' research into sonic technology. The latter seems to have been added at a later date by someone who breached the vault like the Omega did.

Also, boxes and boxes of Twinkies. The cabal go through about a third of what's now the world's reserves of Twinkies before deciding to bring it all back to study and reverse-engineer. After all, what are the Omega's best workers to do in their spare time…?

Well…

Jeb is mostly busy alternately coordinating the space teams, or BASE jumping from Tokyo's skyscrapers.

Ziggy is trying to solve the whole "everyone is an obligate vegan" issue by seeing what an acceptable proportion of meat paste to chemicals used to render meat into paste is. The Omega suspect that he can probably eat a lithium battery and survive. Even the MECs won't touch his food.

Quinn is...

The destination for the recovered supplies is the nearest TOL base, in Mexico. From there the Omega will have an easy time getting anything interesting to the bases under their control, but until then...

The Omega decide to transfer them in small shipments throughout the year to avoid losing everything should an incident arise. Everything is tracked and inventoried. The Omega don't want to lose anything valuable and, if some is lost, they want to know what it is so that plans can be laid for the possibility of stealing it back. Extra security, in the form of arms, armor and sniper support, is assigned to the CATS and information shipments.

"Ziggy, if you're going to make something to eat, you'd better damn well be willing to eat it yourself before asking personnel to sample it…"

And Ziggy has been keeping to that rule. Mostly. Two MECs had to get new stomachs so far, but he's fine. As it is, he's getting pretty good at the whole "toxic trooper" thing. The Omega do have an almost complete Troma Pictures catalog in their databanks.

Both Quinn, in her best combat gear, and Ziggy (armed with whatever nightmare he's been concocting in his spare time) accompany the convoy of moving vans and RVs to Mexico, which are to be up-armored. But one of the RVs is intercepted - it looks like that it has been bought by Omega agents from a small-time moonshiner - but all they lose is a few fairly obscure movies.

The info shipment is done partially through the network - slow as it may be, over a year there's quite a bit of stuff that can be transferred over the phone lines - and partially using the moving vans. One moving van is up-armored internally. One of the teams misunderstood what the Omega meant by up-armoring and made this thing instead; maybe it will come in handy some other time.

Quinn is hit on by Ziggy the entire time; the guy ends up spending part of the trip on the roof of the van after she chases him off.

Much to the Omega's surprise, the move happens without a hitch! It's anyone's call on whether the abandoned air force base is compromised as a location, or not. The Omega now have fresh movies of studio quality, the first in centuries, (Christian movies still manage to be bad even if they have no competition, and there's only so much TOL folk can do in terms of movies... Except for porn), a couple of boxes of Twinkies, and perhaps most importantly, information on CATS' sonic devices. The Omega note with some satisfaction that they also had figured out to use sonar to detect Angels, except their system has better range and more resolution.

Jeb is overjoyed at the knick-knacks that showed up, like old USAF unit patches and the like; they make for very good rocketry prizes.

After a year under surveillance, Sarsour makes a move by beginning his tour in Central Africa, where neither the Omega nor TOL have significant assets. He seems to be mostly interested in stoking believers' enthusiasm rather than gaining converts, which would be weird if it wasn't that the world is pretty bland.

Unsurprisingly, the TOL media division takes credit for the new material.

The base in Tokyo is fully manned, and ready to assist the Omega's production endeavors!

A final piece of news, received via various channels, reports that Raymie Steele has heard about the fireworks and rocketry, and will visit the Christian rocketry group this year. They plan to put on a magnificent show on Christmas Eve, and ask for assistance from Jeb's people... sort of; it's worded more like a challenge.

* * *

Quinn, Ziggy... Martyrs of The Other Light, at least according to their own documents. Mishlitt shrugged. It is true, in a sense, that one is still alive while one's name is still spoken, but then what of Einstein or Tesla? They were, by God's own admission, in Hell. And yet their work continued to inform the myriad things that made humanity's lot easier.

Would it be feasible to invade Hell as the Americans, British and Russians had invaded Germany, and free the captives? Would it be morally right to do so?

She knew that there was a small, but nonzero, chance of it having to be her decision one day.


End file.
